West Windsor Senior Center Retirees Group Subcommittee

A Public Forum On New Jersey Property Tax

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The Retirees Subcommittee Mission consists of three phases:

Phase I:
Promote public forums and debates to examine the alternatives to the present New Jersey Property Tax system and the inefficiencies of the current scope of "Home Rule". This activity will be initially focused in the West Windsor Plainsboro communities and based upon the broad spectrum of issues discussed in Governor's 1998 Commission on Property Tax Report.
Phase II:
With the assistance of media and communities of common interest, promote similar dialog throughout Mercer County and in other communities across the State.
Phase III:
Promote debates in legislative districts on proposed changes to:

Reduce the dependence on Property Tax funding, and
Reorganize government roles in providing services to improve the efficiency of our system of Municipalities, Counties, School Districts, and State services.

The Subcommittee Process is to:

Promote dialog on the COPT recommendations which seek efficiencies in our system amongst key players for local, county, and state government and school districts. Explore the benefits of substantial changes that would have the greatest impact to lower costs of the overall system.
Conduct forums with State and private tax professionals to review and rank the most effective methods to achieve better tax equity over a lifetime, given a cost of Public Education.
Promote dialog to evaluate and formulate an alternative model for the organizations of State School Districts by County to reduce the number and lower the costs of administration.

Conduct surveys on impact of current taxes on resident's personel finances will be conducted with a broad demographic sets of resident groups in a distributed regions of the state.
Employ NJ PBS and NJ University resources to assist in these activities and promote the public participation in the forums and events.
Distill the findings of this process for presentation to State Legislative Committees.
Propose an amendment to the New Jersey Constitution.

Scope of the endeavor to establish "A Public Forum On Property Tax".

Future First Quarter Activities:

Brief Township Council and School Board contacts on breadth of process
Brief Princeton League of Women Voters on Subcommittee formation to guide process and solicit their views on the goals and approach to the project.
Survey interested citizen professional resources to expand contact to broaden the efforts:

WW and PB home owner associations
Local government and community groups in WW and PB and Mercer County
Business associations in County
Educational institution associations in County
Contact prior Commission Chairman and members to solicit their guidance and advise.
Invitation to State entities, Dept of Ed, Dept of Finance, Community Affairs
Invitation to Assembly Legislative District leaders to participate in the process.
Communications and media introduction to process for coverage planning.

Second Quarter Activities:

Establish a topic plan, and key players to assess the Commission Recommendations.
Plan a series of Forums in West Windsor to explore the material and acquaint the residents and via the media, Mercer County on the broad issues involved to address and reform the Property Tax.
Plan a series of Debates in West Windsor to explore the pros and cons of issues confronting reform of the Home Rule tenants and
Continue the use of a Web Site to promote the activity for a "A Public Forum On Property Tax".
Plan a process of media exposure to the process of planning and community interest in meeting the challenge.
Discuss goal to culminate the effort with a proposed Amendment to the New Jersey Constitution.

Third and Fourth Quarter Activities:

Conduct the Forums to familiarize the public of the content and frame the issues.
In the later phases, conduct Debates to explore pros and cons to alternative courses of action.
Invite political leaders to present cogent papers on their views of the best overall plan to proceed at conferences conducted of interested parties in state, municipal, and school administration including political science department experts, and regional policy experts from the New Jersey universities.

Second Year Activities:

Conduct public opinion surveys to test the degree of penetration of the ideas discussed and get views on the best methods or policy to pursue.
Via Council of Mayors, County Executives, School District Boards of Education, Department of Education, and Assembly Leaders, and University Campus across the State, transport the Public Forum to all Counties and Municipalities.
Conduct regional forums to replicate the process developed in Mercer County to educate the public on the issues.
Conduct regional debates on special issues unique to the locals.
Publish the results of Tax Restructuring Models (TRM) formulated along five strategies of reform.
Under the auspices of PBS's NJN, present the TRM models and assumptions on a TV program. This program to be funded by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, and the TRM models introduced by State Department of Finance. The small studio audience of stake holders, from every constituency of taxpayers and educators, will be interviewed and a period of discussion on the material following the summary presentation would be broadcast.
Conduct a second set public opinion surveys to test the degree of penetration of the ideas discussed and get views on the best methods or policy to pursue.
Based upon the above, invite the political leaders at all levels to present cogent papers to the media on their views on the best public policy.
From the above, solicit the Rutgers Department of Political Science to formulate an amendment to the New Jersey Constitution that would incorporate the features that would produce the lowest cost of delivery of public education to New Jersey while affording the maximum equity to all regions in the State.
Present the proposed amendment to the New Jersey Assembly and Senate for their consideration.

Fools Rush In, Where Wise Men Fear To Tread!

Amending The State Constitution Is Not For the Faint Of Heart!

(Hey, this is just an outline of possible provisions; it includes provocative ideas that might seem extreme, but you have to break eggs to make an omelet. Readers should not take this section too seriously, until further public and expert contributions are available.)

The following addresses Property Tax reform and related issues of Home Rule and thereby involves School System and Municipal System reforms.

Reduce the quantity of the School Districts to a max of ten for each of the twenty-one Counties,

Install in each County, a County School Administration Section reporting to the State Department of Education, School Administration Section, to handle all management of salaries and benefits, facilities, procurement, grounds, infrastructure, information systems management, health service, extra curriculum sports programs, contracts, providing services for all districts within the County as directed by the State. Centralize process, expertize, and systems to make all support and services more efficient. Link local school districts to central systems for support and services.

Move all municipal tax assessment and collection responsibilities from municipalities to the County level to ensure more uniformity a common time baseline for each Counties assessment pool, achieve economies of scale, and circulate team expertise between counties as required.

Direct the School District management focus to curriculum, teacher resources, student achievement, campus safety and education improvement programs, activities, and policies. The School District can conduct of fund raising activities for trips and extra curricular activities, evaluate professional staff and conduct and training assessment, evaluate libraries, and facilities to meet the education mission, and efficienty operations and maintain the facilities, with the mission to implement best education practices in the County, while meeting the education needs of the locality, the state, and the nation.
Revise the Elected School Board function to provide oversight the operation of the District Schools, coordination or parent participation in the critique of the system, establish local policy for school operations not covered by the Department of Education, and approve District requests for special funding to redress Department of Education allocations provided by the County Administration; said requests to be submitted to State Assembly Members for the host county for negotiation with the Department of Education and Assembly Finance Committee.
Publish on the NJ Dept. Of Ed. a Web Page which lists by County by District by School all requests from Teachers for text books, school supplies and support items needed by the planned curriculum and not provide by the need date. The site to have a lessons learned section to
Establish a state wide labor negotiations authority to the NJ Dept. of Ed. to negotiate with unions and associations a series salaries and benefits for job positions with an annual cost of living adjustments for region and local, and travel compensation as necessary and the authority to award contracts to qualified bidders to provide the required services categories for specified periods of performance. All contract rates are to be automatically adjusted for inflation rates in NJ as determined by the New Jersey Department of Finance. County administration may offer additional wage compensation to retain essential grandfathered personnel and as temporary inducement to meet a current year staff shortage; extra County costs are to be funded by a state wide supplemental tax assessment on income collected on the income tax form by a unique County rate.
New job descriptions and rates will be negotiated every five years to match the regional profiles and advances in technology and education methodology advances. Strikes by labor unions will be illegal until the labor representation has won a court judgement that the present system is not equitable.
Introduce for Property Tax two variable rate adjustment table with one provision to reduce the rate based upon the principal resident life expectancy and a second provision to reduce the rate based upon the term of ownership and residency.
Abolish State rebate programs with separate administration costs.

Rebalance State Income, Sales and Property Tax sources to fund public school education to make the process equitable over a lifetime.

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